Published 4:00 am, Saturday, May 15, 1999

1999-05-15 04:00:00 PDT San Francisco -- At some coffee houses you get coffee and a paper. At Caffe Trieste you get a touch of Italy, a taste of North Beach, a little music, a lot of mothering and a sense of history.

And did I mention the best coffee in this caffeine-crazed city?

And you get all this largely because of the wondrous nature of one Iolanda Bodi, the heart and soul of Caffe Trieste, North Beach's unofficial den mother and the maternal overseer of adults and children who have grown up under and over her well-worn counter during the past 27 years.

To say that Iolanda knows how to run an Italian cafe is like saying that Francis Ford Coppola knows his way around a movie set -- a fitting image, because a fair portion of the script for "The Godfather" was penned by young Francis at a coffee table inside Trieste's weathered walls.

Yet next Thursday, after nearly three decades of matronly and unduly devoted rule, Iolanda will leave the espresso, biscotti and the customers behind to return to her native Italy, where she will finally retire at age 71 from the grind of early mornings, crowded nights and weekend afternoons. And there are literally thousands of java-hooked city residents who equate a time without Iolanda to a world without freshly roasted coffee.

In other words, what's the point of continuing? Well, her family would point out that the cafe will still be open and still brew spectacular coffee concoctions. But no matter how you look at it, the cup -- that luscious cup -- will, at least for a while, be half-empty.

"Everybody is sorry about it, but no one more than me," she said. "I love San Francisco and I love my customers, but I'm tired now. I'm a strong woman, but I've been working a long time and I don't feel so strong now. It's time for me to go."

And to think she almost never came. She visited her brother in San Francisco back in 1972 and planned on spending a few weeks. Next thing you know, her husband, Francesco, and she are packing their bags in a little town near Trieste, Italy, and moving to the city by the bay. He used to work nights until he retired. The days belonged to Iolanda.

Caffe Trieste is one of the oldest coffee houses in San Francisco, 43 now, an unofficial landmark on the corner of Grant and Vallejo. It has become fodder for the tourist guides because of its longevity and its legendary status as a meeting and drinking place for some of the city's most famous leaders and loafers since the late '50s. The pictures on the wall taken at the cafe over the years look like a road map to the city's past.

The cafe -- mostly with Iolanda at the helm -- has gone from the beats to the hippies to the artists to the Internet babies. It remains a hangout for poets, painters, Pacific Rim investment lions and scores of single- family homeowners. Some people have been meeting there since they were in their teens and now have children in their teens. Bill Cosby stops by when in town, as does Faye Dunaway. Joe Alioto used to read poetry there -- even when he wasn't looking for votes.

But the funny thing is, Iolanda remembers them all, years after they've gone, and remembers their orders, too. Her capacity for remembering small details is positively Clintonesque, except, of course, she doesn't have to lie.

"Chi Chi, you look beautiful today today," she greets one regular. Her genuineness and generosity cannot be faked -- any more than her temper when an unruly ingrate occasionally breaks one of Trieste's unwritten rules of order. Some of the regulars told me the story of one oversized gentleman who was making a ruckus, a man so big that no one wanted to inform him that he was not meeting cool cafe code.

That didn't stop Iolanda, who picked up a broom and came flying around the counter with such fury on her face that the man departed as if by bullet train.

"It's a very unique place because it's changed so little over the years," photographer John Horvers said the other morning. "What makes it special is that it's like an extension of your living room. The same faces are here all the time and so is mom. And she's always got something to say to you -- though it helps if you can understand Italian."

Kathy Sherak does, which is how she has ended up spending a good portion of her life under Iolanda's watchful eye. Sherak, who now trains teachers at San Francisco State University, was walking by one day when she heard some authentic Italian folk music wafting from the corner. It was a Saturday, and the sound of a sweet mandolin all but sucked her through the door.

"I thought I had died and gone to heaven," said Sherak, who spent years in Italy. "And then I got to know the family and after a while the family offered me a job."

And for the next 10 years, Sherak worked behind the counter learning the secrets of great coffee while earning enough money to put herself through graduate school. Her husband, the local artist Chaen Chan, also worked there, adding yet another member to the extended Trieste family.

"Iolanda was like my Italian mother," Sherak said. "She takes care of people, gets to know their kids, their work, their lives. She treated me like her daughter."

And others like sons. Several hundred of them are expected to turn out for a party tomorrow at Cafe Cocomo, which doesn't sound Italian but probably will by the end of the day. It's a Ciao Bella kind of thing.

"My life, my life has been beautiful," Iolanda told me the other day. "What can I say?"

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